Five Ubisoft executives, including Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat, are in hot water after the french stock market regulatory commission Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) has fined the employees a cumulative total of over €1.2m.

As reported by Kotaku, the AMF alleges that the five executives intentionally sold mass amounts of stock in early October 2013, mere days before the announcement that Watch Dogs and The Crew were being delayed until 2014. Following the slip in schedule, Ubisoft stock dropped by roughly 26 per cent.

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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=1874012Fri, 09 Dec 2016 20:28:00 +0000Astroneer looks like the game you may have wanted from No Man's Sky

Those disappointed by No Man's Sky's lack of co-op play will likely be intrigued by the similarly procedurally-generated space exploration title Astroneer, which is coming to Steam Early Access and Xbox One's Game Preview Program on 16th December.

Astroneer allows players to explore procedurally-generated planets that can be terraformed and harvested for resources. According to developer System Era Softworks, players can "reshape terrain as though it were made of Play-Doh."

It's not just the landscapes that are malleable either, as players can craft their own custom-designed spaceships, vehicles and modules.

February of last year Berlin-based developer Jo-Mei Games announced a stylish sailing game called Sea of Solitude. Now that game has been picked up by EA as its second "EA Originals" title.

Sea of Solitude follows the story of a woman named Kay who must sail the seas in search of a cure to a disease that's turning her into a monster. Creative director Cornelia Geppert previously described its art and tone as "a mixture between Ghibli and Silent Hill".

The developer previously noted that the adventure will contain "exploration, puzzles [and] action."

With the holidays fast approaching, countless people worldwide are starting to dread spending time with annoying, distant relatives. Could be worse though - you could be spending them with one of these spectacularly dysfunctional families instead.

Join us below as we look at some of the very worst families in video games.

UPDATE 09/12/2016 5.30pm: Pewdiepie has trolled the internet at large by not deleting his channel with a record-setting 50m strong subscribers. Instead, he deleted his second channel, Jack septiceye2, which only had two videos.

This was partially a ploy to reach 50 million subs, an unheard of amount for a YouTube content creator, but there was a more satirical element to this as well, as Pewdiepie recently vented his frustration with the media reporting on his sarcastic bits out of context. Granted that was after his threat to remove his channel, but in his latest video, about the gag, Pewdiepie ends it with a montage of articles from major news outlets writing about his alleged channel deleting, thus proving that his pronouncement was apparently newsworthy.

Just a few months from release, and despite a round of recent reveals we still know surprisingly little about Mass Effect Andromeda - despite it sounding like the biggest and most ambitious game in BioWare's beloved series to date.

We still don't know a firm release date, other than Mass Effect Andromeda's vague "spring 2017" launch window - why is that? Should fans be worried the game might slip?

How much has changed? What has happened to the Milky Way races not included in the game (quarians! geth!) and could they still appear? Then there's your squad members - essentially your family in Andromeda. How many will there be, and what's that we hear that one was cut?

Joy of joys, it's that time of year again. A time for giving, a time for sharing, a time for us to get you to write the site for us 'cos we're too lazy and just want to sod off for a couple of weeks. Happy yuletide, everyone! Our gift to you, in time-honoured tradition, is the chance to prove you've got much better taste in games than us as we ask you to vote for your favourite games of the year. Let us know what was special about what you played this year and we'll compile your best comments for publication during the Christmas break. Voting ends on Thursday 15th at 2pm, but before then have at it!

A note from the editor: Jelly Deals is a new deals site launched by our parent company, Gamer Network, with a mission to find the best bargains out there. (It also has the best name.) We've invited the Jelly Deals team to share a weekly roundup of (mostly) gaming-related bargains with us, so we can pass their tips on to you. Full disclosure: if you make a purchase from one of these links, we will receive a small commission from the retailer. Hopefully you'll find it useful!

Christmas is here again, as signalled by the annual tradition of retailers creating their most emotionally-geared advertisements in a bid to be the one that makes you cry the most. Also, that Coca-Cola 'holidays are coming' ad is back yet again just in case you weren't quite sure what time of year it was. With Christmas comes the eventual realisation that you have to buy a bunch of gifts for people you know and love. It also means you can probably grab something for yourself while you're there. Getting gifts for gamers can be a little tricky sometimes, though, so whether you're buying for a loved one or just looking to get yourself a treat after what has felt like a very long year, here are some of our picks for some of the best gifts for gamers this Christmas.

There is almost always a need to have a good, reliable second controller. Sure, you'll probably be fine with the DualShock 4 that comes with your PS4 and it will last you a long enough time. There's something to be said, however, for getting an extra controller to either let you play games with others or just to use as a backup just in case things get a little too heated during an intense online multiplayer session.

I've become obsessed with paintings recently. Not art in general: paintings. I've been going to galleries in London and leaning in close to see the brush strokes on the canvas or the wood. I've been learning about glazes, tints, and something called scumbling, which, it transpires, is almost as good as its name. It's been...amazing.

This started off because of my recent crush on Velazquez, an artist who applies paint so thinly that you can sometimes see the weave of the canvas peering through. He gets this incredible depth of feeling - integrity, the sense of a private moment captured and explored - and he does it with the lightest of materials, applied with a long-handled brush. You get a sense of speed. He's a genius, but the thinness of his paint really takes him to another level. Everybody who loves Velazquez mentions it: so little paint, and he does so much with it.

In a book by Matthew Collings I got a glimpse of what I've truly become obsessed with. Matthew Collings is an art writer of imagination and playfulness - he reminds me a bit of our own Bertie - and he's a painter, too. In Matt's Old Masters, he writes about the appeal of paint: "...the idea that the handling of it has an expressive, rich, luxurious life of its own."

This mountain has stories. That's what someone in Steep told me early on in the adventure, although I may be paraphrasing.

And I thought: Sure, stories, blah blah blah. The time I spun off that jump at a wonky angle and landed, inelegantly, in the open embrace of a tree. The time I found the only patch of rock on a smooth downhill run and landed, inelegantly, in the open embrace of a tree.

But this is Ubisoft, remember? So the mountain actually does have stories. I found one on a night jaunt in my first hour or so playing, already deep inside the game's astonishing open world, a huge map filled with peaks and valleys and absolutely no loading times between them. I was following a skier down a slope, and the mountain started talking to me, spinning up a veritable Kate Bush lyric about how it was ancient and primal and would speak its truths if it I asked it to. Steep, then, is not SSX or any other winter sports game I might have imagined it would be at first. Steep is weird. And it's often wonderful.

Want to play a game with a giant friendly beast and you don't have a PS4 for The Last Guardian? You may be in luck as third-person shooter / MOBA hybrid Gigantic, which features fighting alongside a colossal beast that will terrorise your opposition once adequately charged, has launched its open beta today on Windows 10 PC and Xbox One via Microsoft's Game Preview Program.

Gigantic is centered around 5v5 team-based combat wherein players choose between 16 Heroes, each with their own comprehensive skill tree. Claiming points on the map will summon in various allied creatures that will aid your team in different ways.

Developer Motiga has quite the pedigree with Starcraft, Guild Wars and State of Decay lead designer James Phinney taking point as Gigantic's creative director.

Skylanders developer Vicarious Visions is going to be working on Destiny in a joint effort with Bungie.

"Vicarious Visions is excited to announce that we are partnering with Bungie to further expand the Award-Winning Destiny Universe", Bungie said on Twitter.

This is amid various reports that Skylanders, as a series, has been cancelled following poor sales of its 2016 entry Skylanders: Imaginators, which saw a 41 per cent decline following Skylanders: SuperChargers in 2015. Imaginators only sold 66k retail copies in the US during October, which publisher Activision deemed in a recent financial report was below its expectations - as was viewership of its Netflix show Skylanders Academy.

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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=1873802Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:48:00 +00001000 people will get to play Sea of Thieves' first alpha next weekend

Last month Sea of Thieves developer Rare launched an Insider Programme allowing excited fans the chance to partake in early alpha and beta tests for the in-development pirate game. Now Rare has confirmed that the first "Technical Alpha" will go live from 16th-18th December.

Only about 1000 Xbox One players will partake in this first semi-public hands-on though. "This gives us the right scale and experience for our first test, and will allow us to focus closely on the feedback we receive. As we move on through the Technical Alpha phase, we'll gradually increase the player base and frequency of sessions in line with the game's evolution," Rare said of its playtesting process.

Those who are selected to be part of the Technical Alpha will be bound by an NDA, so don't expect a ton of new footage to leak as testers experiment with the current iteration of Sea of Thieves.

The demo will be set in an abandoned factory as android 2B and their companions seek to destroy a massive weapon within. My guess is that it will be the robot boss battle revealed from the E3 trailer.

Square Enix also revealed the game's fancy £169.99 / $189.99 Black Box Edition, which includes a figurine of 2B, hardback artbook, original soundtrack, code for bonus DLC, and a steelbook case, all housed within a sleek black Collector's Edition box.

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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=1873785Thu, 08 Dec 2016 21:45:00 +0000Naughty Dog teased The Last of Us 2 back in September and no one noticed

An official The Last of Us poster teased the game's sequel back in September, fans have now realised.

The artwork, created by famed designer Kevin Tong, was released for The Last of Us' annual "Outbreak Day" celebrations on 26th September.

It depicts someone (we presumed Ellie) holding a switchblade knife. Fern branches are wrapped around her arm, while moths perch on her and nearby.

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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=1873726Thu, 08 Dec 2016 16:14:00 +0000Watch: See how the Crash Bandicoot remaster holds up to the originals

The fans asked for it, and now they have it. After what felt like years of teases and cameos, Crash Bandicoot is back. Kind of.

Vicarious Visions, developers of countless Skylanders games, is remastering the first three games in Naughty Dog's series in The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, and it's doing a pretty good job of it judging by our first look at the game.

It's a remarkably faithful remake, and as this video demonstrates Vicarious Visions has gone to great lengths to replicate the originals, with (almost) everything in place and given an attractive makeover.

The food you stumble across in the Fallout universe tends to fall into two camps; surviving products from before the bombs fell (three cheers for preservatives) and dodgy looking cuisine made from whatever's lying around - or trying to tear your face off.

One such dish is mirelurk cakes, a recipe for which can be found in Fallout 3. I've been having a lot of fun cooking up video game food recently - you may have caught the recipe for Final Fantasy 15's horntooth pie or hagfish dumplings from Dishonored 2 - so I decided to grab a frying pan and give it a go myself. True to the franchise they turned out a bit, well, S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

If you fancy making mirelurk cakes for yourself, I've added my recipe (such as it is) below.

French indie studio AnyArts Productions has announced Seasons of Heaven, a new adventure game to be released exclusively on Nintendo Switch.

Seasons of Heaven's story is based on a little-known French novel of the same name, which centres on a group of survivors in a post-civilisation world.

The game stars are Yann, a young boy with Asperger's syndrome, and Ani his French bulldog. Gameblog.fr has the first details and initial screenshots, some which you can see below. Both Yann and his canine pal are playable.

Dragon Quest Heroes 2 will be released 28th April 2017 on PS4 in Europe, Square Enix has announced. It was released in Japan May 2016.

Dragon Quest Heroes 2 repeats the one against many, Dynasty Warriors-style mayhem of the first game - but with the crucial addition of online four-player co-op. Two new heroes Lazarel and Teresa are available play.

Dragon Quest Heroes 1 arrived here 2015, all colourful and bombastic. But the move to action-RPG meant some Dynasty Warriors magic was lost along the way. "Omega Force may gain some new supporters to its cause," wrote Simon Parkin in his Dragon Quest Heroes review, "but something vital has been traded in the endeavour."

Deep space exploration game Elite Dangerous, already available on PC and Xbox One, will finally touch down on PlayStation 4 in Q2 2017, developer Frontier Games has announced.

This new PS4 version will include touchpad controls to allow you to easily swipe through your Milky Way navigation and customise four "hotkeys" via the touchpad to quickly access features which tie into your play style.

Motion controls using the DualShock 4's gyros will also be implemented to let you "fast headlook" around in the middle of combat.

Two things have happened at once: RocketWerkz announced virtual reality game Out of Ammo: Death Drive to Italica - a standalone follow-up to Out of Ammo due early next year; and studio head Dean Hall spoke out about "the hard truth" of VR development.

Hall was responding to a growing wave of criticism levelled against developers 'selling out' and signing exclusivity deals for PC VR platforms Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, therefore restricting games to one platform either forever or for a certain amount of time (a timed exclusive).

By dispelling these "terrible assumptions", Hall revealed some startling truths of his own. He said Out of Ammo was "very unprofitable" despite exceeding sales expectations and "selling unusually well compared to many other VR games".

First of all, I'm sorry about that strapline. Tom Phillips said it would look better written down, but I'm not convinced.

Anyway! Total War: Warhammer is getting its next big DLC today, introducing the Wood Elves as a playable race along with their new mini campaign that sees them protecting a massive tree from some unknown evil.

I'm not really into the fiction (can you tell?), but I'm a big fan of how this new race handles battle itself. Unsurprisingly, the Wood Elves make fine archers, but it's not simply a case of increased range or damage output. There's quite a bit more to it than that, if you know what you're doing.

It's taken its time, but step by step and piece by piece DICE has moved towards the Battlefront that fans wanted. Not that it was too far off at its first attempt, mind; upon release last November Star Wars Battlefront was an arrestingly gorgeous multiplayer shooter that only just stopped short of greatness. The updates outside of the expansion packs have often done a better job of keeping the game fresh than the paid DLC, but the final add-on for Battlefront feels like the most substantial yet. It certainly feels like the one that's been shaped most by fan feedback as well.

"The reception was mixed," DICE producer Paul Keslin says of the launch in an honest appraisal. "We've been listening to a lot of the feedback since launch and even post-launch as we've been adding new things. We've announced the next game that's coming out - those are things we're look to tackle in the future. We can't always get everything in the current game, but in the future we want to hit those things and give the fans what they're after."

Battlefront's Rogue One DLC comes mighty close to delivering one particular request from fans. When DICE's take on Battlefront was revealed, people were upset that it lacked one of the key features of the original games - namely the ability for players to go from on-foot to aerial combat in one seamless action. The Rogue One DLC doesn't quite go that far, but what it does is present a game mode that moves from aerial combat to ground warfare - and unlike the Death Star DLC before it that had a similar mode, the loading screens here are kept to a minimum, the transition now happening via a swift cutscene.

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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=1873509Thu, 08 Dec 2016 10:00:00 +0000Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Nintendo Switch shown live for first time

Nintendo has shown off Zelda: Breath of the Wild running on the Switch for the first time.

Sure, Zelda popped up in the Nintendo Switch's reveal commercial, but only on dummy units.

Last night's episode of The Tonight Show saw Nintendo turn up with a working Switch unit and a copy of Zelda to demo live.

Super Mario Run launches Nintendo's biggest franchise onto the screens of iPhones and iPads for the very first time (Android comes later) and it looks, on the surface at least, exactly like New Super Mario Bros. - a series which has become a best-selling staple of Nintendo's home consoles and handhelds.

It's a strange sight, the first time Mario jogs onto your iPhone. Nintendo waited so long to jump into mobile game development it felt like the day would never come. And yet there he is, with his portly run and trademark dungarees, leaping and landing in a brave new world.

If you're expecting a straightforward port of 2D Mario game you'll be surprised - with its one-handed controls and touchscreen jumping, Super Mario Run immediately feels like a very different animal. Likewise, if you heard the game's name and equated it to one of the App Store's endless runners, you're also mistaken. Mario's iPhone debut ends up landing somewhere in the middle.

The Swiss adventure launched on PC and Mac back in July 2015 wherein I recommended it.

Feist merges the minimalist aesthetic and heavy physics of Limbo with the swifter arcade skirmishes one typically associates with something like Donkey Kong Country or the madcap mayhem of Spelunky. It's frantic and funny, if a little frivolous.

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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=1872752Wed, 07 Dec 2016 18:49:00 +0000Zelda: Breath of the Wild gets its own official pocketwatches

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is getting its own licensed pocketwatches via game publisher Taito.

As revealed by game merchandising outlet NCSX (via GoNintendo), there are two pocketwatches in this lineup. One has a blue face with an image of Link in the background, while the other has a black face adorned by gold sigils.

The fifth and final episode in Telltale's Batman series (or at least its first season), Season of Light, will be out on 13th December for PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360, along with iOS and Android devices.

Furthermore, the series' first episode, Realm of Shadows, is now free on Steam.

Our Aoife Wilson found the debut to be a bit unoriginal with its retelling of DC's familiar lore, but it sets up a story that could prove more intriguing over time. It has plenty of Bruce Wayne anyway, and how many video games can you say that about?

Star Wars Battlefront is coming to EA Access and Origin Access on 13th December, just in time for Rogue One's theatrical release on the 16th.

We've known since October that EA would be adding this to its subscription service, but now we know its exact date.

It's worth noting that EA Access is exclusive to Xbox One, while Origin Access is a PC thing, so neither will include the currently PSVR-exclusive Battlefront VR experience that Martin's been raving about.

There are plenty of game theories knocking around the net, but one of the first and probably one of the most well known has to be about the relationship between the Pokémon, Cubone and Kangaskhan. I go into a bit more detail in the video below, but to cut a long story short, some people believe that a Cubone is an orphaned Kangaskhan baby that has been forced to wear it's dead mothers skull for protection. Cheery!

Like most theories, this creepy connection has been impossible to completely prove or disprove. But, with the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon, we might finally be a lot closer to the truth.

UPDATE 7/12/16: Pokémon Go developer Niantic has now confirmed the imminent arrival of new monsters into the game.

The confirmation comes just a day after an internal memo to Starbucks staff leaked online which mentioned the upcoming release event.

From an earlier leak of the game's files, everything points to the arrival of Pokémon Gold and Silver's expanded menagerie. Those games introduced 100 new species including Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile and Togepi.

I'm getting married next year, which means I can reasonably expect to sleep with one person for the rest of my life - barring any situations involving car keys being placed into a bowl, that is. Not that I have a car. Anyway, my point is that it's been a long time since I had a one night stand, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect when jumping into One Night Stand on Steam.

What I got was an extremely potent flashback to my bed-hopping early twenties and all the feelings of awkwardness, vulnerability and faux-Catholic guilt that characterised that period. I realise that doesn't sound like the most ringing endorsement for a video game, but bear with me. One Night Stand is a game in which you wake up naked in a stranger's bed, unable to remember what happened to you the night before. As the minutes tick slowly by, you attempt to piece together what happened last night by talking to your former bedfellow and - whenever she nips out to do something - snooping around her bedroom.

The items you find in the room open up new dialogue options, many of which hint at there being more to this tale than a simple drunken hookup - issues of consent, identity and the burning question of what comes next are all raised. You can also play as a complete pig, if you want to - I don't know many games that will let you attempt to steal someone's underwear in the first two minutes, but One Night Stand certainly isn't afraid to go there.

Be warned - some minor spoilers follow. The first beneficiary of the free updates will be Chapter 13 - the point at which the game sheds its open world and becomes more linear, and a level with stealth elements that's been cited as being overlong and frustrating as it limits the player's abilities. "Our early plans are to enrich certain aspects of the game, adding gameplay enhancements for Chapter 13, buffing ring magic, etc," said Tabata in the update. "We'll have the specifics of what and when for you at a later date."

Perhaps more controversially, Final Fantasy 15's story is to be tweaked with new cut-scenes that aim to clear up a muddied plot. "We're hoping to delve deeper into the story, adding scenes that will give you new insight into character motivations, such as why Ravus walked the path he did," said Tabata of what's to come after the updates to Chapter 13. "We will need a little time with these, as they'll need to be localised and voiced in other languages, but we'll let you know the details once everything is set."

During The Game Awards, Gearbox announced it was behind the Bulletstorm remaster. Bulletstorm is a superb first-person shooter, as our Christian Donlan insists, so news of the Full Clip Edition was welcome. But shortly after the reveal, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford battled calls on Twitter for an upgrade discount programme that - it seems - is not going to happen.

The debate kicked off when Pitchford was asked on Twitter whether owners of Bulletstorm on PC who already have it on Steam would be given the upgraded version for free - or at least discounted.

It's a fair question. We've seen similar promotions from some publishers who have remastered their games, such as Bethesda with Skyrim Special Edition, 2K with BioShock and THQ Nordic with Darksiders Warmastered Edition.

If you've got a VR headset of any flavour at home, you'll know the situation. You've got friends around, and they're keen to see what this strange, not-so-new technology is capable of now it's finally found its way into people's living rooms.

Previously I'd bust out Oculus Dreamdeck and get everyone to meet the dinosaur, rejoicing in their squirms and screams as a T-Rex came bounding towards them in that abandoned museum hall. Then I'd send them down to the depths of PlayStation VR Worlds to meet the shark, and yet again rejoice in their squirms and screams as they came face to face with the great white.

There's a theme emerging, sure, but it's not always about inflicting fear and suffering on newcomers - really good friends would be treated to a playthrough of Rez Infinite's VR rendition of Area 5, which remains the greatest experience I've yet had in virtual reality. Now, though, if I'm looking for a quick and easy sell for this new medium there's a new go-to game.

The Overwatch Twitter account shared an animated Christmas card with a picture of a Dickensian King's Row on the front and the words, "It's the most wonderful time of the year and we hope you join us for some holiday cheer," and the date, on the inside.

Beyond a strong hint that King's Row will be turned into a scene from A Christmas Carol, or thereabouts, no clues about the Christmas contents were given.